John Hallock + (CANA)

My paradigm is based on the arrogance of people who have given up on hearing God and would never say they have a word from the Lord, but instead think they have theology figured out. Where your culture would divide over their personal hearing, mine would divide over their interpretation of scripture.

That is why I think church would still be needed, because we test each other and build each other up, sometimes confrontationally. I think your are right that it can’t be unbalanced in either direction. We should meet in the middle on the next post.

Thanks for commenting. (and for your humility)

I grew up in a church that dissed theology and emphasized “my own personal Jesus.” But that itself is a theology, and the funny thing is that it is a theology that is just as destructive to being church as is Theology. Everyone gets so involved “having a personal (read “private”) relationship with Jesus” and hearing Him tell them what to say to others that they don’t remember that they are the BODY of Christ.

I was in high school for my first church split, and I am sorry to say that it was not the last. Just as often as the splits have been sparked by arguments over doctrine, they have been sparked by people who claim to or are perceived to be hearing God and being led by Him.

How to correct this? At some point we must return to scripture and LEARN what Christ intends the Church to be. But to do that is to do theology!

I hear what you are after…but I fear that to define theology as “people who who don’t hear God” is a mistake. That is just a definition of BAD theology.

Furthermore, to think that theology can be done apart from the Body of Christ– spread across space and time–is also a mistake, one to which we protestants are particularly susceptible, as we tend to ignore entire swaths of the life of the Church, for the sake of “sola scriptura.” The answer isn’t to ditch theology, but to do theology BETTER.

We are all broken, sinful, missing the mark, and so we all overshoot the sweet spot where Christ stands, and believe that the truth will be found through prayer, OR r theology, OR praise and worship, OR social action. Lord forgive us, and lead us back to your center, to where You are, to where all these things are held together in perfect balance, to Your glory.

Interesting about the diagram. I think I would naturally lean more toward the mystic, though that word has too much baggage for me. I usually balk at the meyers/briggs stuff, but I like this one because it addresses how extremes can be unhealthy.

I’ll see if I can find the book.